With their get-tough-on-immigrants stance, Republicans have blown an opportunity to guarantee a GOP majority in perpetuity

In an outdoor press conference held across the street from the
Capitol last week, Representative Tom Tancredothe Colorado
Republican who has made a name for himself, momentarily, by bashing
illegal immigrantspretended to be mystified by his more moderate
Senate colleagues. "Who are you responding to?" he asked of them.
"Nobody," he answered for them. None of the gazillions of
citizen-patriots calling his office had expressed anything but dismay
over the illegal aliensa term that makes it sound as if the country
were being invaded by Martians.